


Sinner Sinuous

by terma_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Blood, Episode: s02e04 Sleepless, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-04-16
Updated: 2000-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terma_archivist/pseuds/terma_archivist
Summary: Summary: Krycek has a conscience, but it's just as dark and convoluted as the rest of him. How far will he go to satisfy it?
Relationships: Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder
Collections: TER/MA





	Sinner Sinuous

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [TER/MA](https://fanlore.org/wiki/TER/MA) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the TER/MA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/terma/profile).  
> Notes: Set at the end of Sleepless. Spoilers: ""Sleepless,"" vague conspiracy references, and a teensy mention of events in ""Terma"" Warnings: Blood, angst, m/m interaction. Disclaimer: These characters are owned and also cruelly mistreated by surfer dude CC and the evil FOX, not to be mistaken for Alex's darling Lisitsa. Beta: By the wonderful Dr. Ruthless and the lovely Niffusa. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

  
**Sinner Sinuous  
by Meri Lomelindi**

  
Alex Krycek was a very meticulous man.

Contrary to popular belief among his comrades, Alex Krycek was no psychopath. While it was true that they proliferated among the ranks of men like Krycek—as assassins—they were regarded as an unknown quantity. A psychopath teetered a hairsbreadth away from losing control with each bullet he propelled into another's brain; with every thrust of his knife, the nimble, furtive fingers of madness crept up his spine and threatened to overwhelm him.

It was not so with Alex Krycek. Where a psychopath would be abandoned and disposed of to prevent his employers from getting their asses hauled off to prison, men like Krycek were sought after. You could _trust_ Alex Krycek. He'd do his job like clockwork, prompt and efficient, without so much as a droplet of blood left at the scene. Even with every aspect of an execution planned out, he was still able to adapt in case of a complication; that, too, was included in his plans. Never would a man like Krycek break down, nor would he reveal his secrets to anyone who didn't need to know them. It wasn't in his nature.

The smoking man had hired Alex Krycek knowing this, but not knowing precisely how he'd figured it out. Even the psychologist that the cancerstick had initially sent to spy on him hadn't been able to unravel the tangles of the Krycekian psyche. Not that the smoker had cared after that; sure, they had their little tiffs, and the occasional power struggle, but he was content as long as Krycek pulled his job off without a hitch. Nothing else really mattered.

But it did matter to Alex Krycek, because he was a meticulous man. He paid for his sins. One by one, with the same economy of motion and deed that he employed when killing, he atoned for the deaths he caused.

Now, the man who was not really Alex Krycek was sprawled on the bathroom floor of his Alexandria apartment. It was his home for a few months; a year, perhaps. Alex Krycek was his identity here, slipped on like a second skin, barely masking what lay beneath the oil-slick hair and the cheap, crisp-collared suit. It didn't bother him at all, other than a bit of itching where coarse polyester met flesh. If he needed to, he could shed the worn cloak that was Krycek without a second thought—the core would remain intact.

That core—Alexei, it liked to call itself in the fragments of time between farces—gathered up wiry lengths of leg and hauled its weary body into a standing position. >From outside the locked door, there came a drawl in awkward, hoarse monotones, sandpaper on his ears.

"Krycek? Are you okay in there?"

He twisted the little knob and the faucet spewed water, liquid gushing against layered marble. The sound was as soothing as his partner's voice in its utter, droning monotony, and over it he called, "I'm fine, Mulder. Be out in a few minutes."

When there was no reply, he was momentarily startled. He had expected a generic response along the lines of, 'Hey, you take as long as a chick in there,' or maybe a concerned 'You're not puking, are you?' But the silence wasn't all that surprising, having known that Mulder was _different_ since his first briefing on the intrepid X-Files agent, and soon Krycek was proceeding with his task.

Behind the mirror was a tiny compartment, and from it he plucked a knife. It was plain; long and slim, razor-edged, gleaming the silver of moonshine in the dim glow of the bathroom lamp (he'd have to replace that bulb later). He stared at it for a moment in unfeigned awe, running the tip along the fleshy ends of his fingers with the air of someone who'd been repeating this ritual one too many times.

Then he glanced up at the mirror—caught the brief, telltale shimmer of anticipation that hung in the upturned corners of his lips—and set the knife on the counter in order to scrutinize his now foreign reflection.

Handsome, eager, smooth and tanned; others saw this in him. Krycek zeroed in on the violet rings around the eyes, the stale flecks of jade that blinked back at him; the curtain of dark lashes that hid his languor. Sometimes he wondered if anyone else could see what glared at him from the depths of fake green.

These were the eyes of a killer.

The drowsy pupils shone bright in the pale room; in fact, his entire face had a golden, fuzzy cast to it. It looked as though he was staring at his reflection in a pool of rippling water, distorted by the sun. There was no love lost between Krycek and the sun. He'd always basked in the cover of darkness, reveling in the anonymity that night afforded him.

Daylight on his features, even manufactured, was too much to bear, so he swiveled to face the ebony veil of the shower curtain. Casually he undid the clasp of his belt, tugged the blood-tinged pants off, and folded them by the door in a neat square. 

Back against the counter, knife clutched tightly in one hand, Krycek propped his foot up on the strategically placed stool. Focused his attention on the coruscating metal like it was one of his targets. Brought it up to the skin of his outer thigh, brushing, testing the waters, and the methodic whirl of his mind selected a number.

Two.

One: Alex Krycek had killed a man. Two: Alex Krycek had killed unnecessarily. Whether or not he'd known it at the time was irrelevant.

One; the knife lay flush against the skin, pressed deep, and tore through the unresisting skin like cold fire. A faint, nearly inaudible swishing was the only sound that followed; a flick of friction. But he could sense that it wasn't quite deep enough, and the shallowness of it was acid eating at him—so there went the knife again, to delve into the thin crevice; to absolve him.

It stung—stung a lot, in fact, but he could ignore it, and if the pain was too much he could always bite his lip. There was a host of easy excuses for that. His eyes were fixed on the narrow sliver, on the scarlet that welled up inside and trickled out to stain the paleness of his skin. When he slid the knife away, it was iced with red.

Bits of skin clung to the blade along with the blood, thin and transparent, like ribbons of gossamer. Twisting his shoulders back to reach the sink, where the water was still running to accommodate Mulder's ears, he dipped the knife under the steady flow until it gleamed. Then he shifted back, quicksilver, the knife flitting over to the mess that was his leg and gutting it just below the first cut.

Two; this time he slashed an X, glancing and delicate — it was almost an art form. But it grew exponentially as the seconds passed, blade twitching back and forth in crazed arcs, teeth grinding into his bottom lip as he carved like a madman. He did not think; couldn't feel except for the vacant rush of agony that coursed through his leg. His mind was a steel trap, clenched onto a single rat of a phrase that was his mantra. A broken record, it repeated over and over and over and over—in between darts of the knife, he allowed it to slither through his parted lips into the cool swath of air that encircled him: spasi menya.

After the X had been distorted, unrecognizable, by rivers of crimson that spurted from it and then oozed down in tantalizingly slow dribbles, he jerked the knife out. With a perverse sense of fascination he surveyed his handiwork: was the blood bright enough? The cuts.. were they deep enough to crack the surface of his guilt? Once the blood was gone, would he still be able to discern the shape of his atonement? He watched, frozen, as the dribbles grew thick and plump, flowed over his thigh, spilled onto the plastic tiling—plop, plop. A lopsided puddle formed, liquid darkening into the rich crimson bloom of a flower as it mingled with oxygen.

Once, Krycek had read that blood tasted salty. This was a common fallacy. He tested it each time he sinned; now he tentatively skimmed bloodied skin with one finger, gathered a wet trickle. And he brought it to his mouth, slipping it in, lapping the redness up with his tongue. As usual, it had little in the way of taste—blood was like water. If it was tainted, like Krycek's had been ever since his bastard birth, there was a metallic tang. Never had it been salty, but he'd yet to drink anyone else's blood, so who knew? He might be some kind of freak.

He half fancied that Mulder's blood would taste of sugar. Or perhaps, more realistically, of vinegar.

Just as Mulder's image ran through his head, all burning eyes and pouty, succulent frowns, the man himself spoke. "Are you taking a shower or something?"

"No," Krycek shouted through the door, relieved when his voice failed to crack in mid-sentence, "I'll be out in a minute. Relax. There's beer in the fridge."

Spurred into action, he snapped the nearby drawer open to retrieve a tiny square of gauze. Though it barely fit over the slashes, it managed to staunch the flow of blood, and in the meantime he cleansed the knife. Razors were better for this kind of thing—cleaner, quicker, more painful, and even explainable—but damn if they didn't bleed for twenty minutes afterwards, and Alex Krycek was a man who seldom had time to spare.

In the midst of tucking the knife into its spot behind the mirror, he also snatched a torn scrap of paper from the same compartment. A pencil rested on the ridge of the counter. This he used to scrawl a tally on one side and then a slash over the four tallies on the other; this made five. The next time they gave him a job in New York he'd add them to his burgeoning wall of sin.

He rinsed his leg off in the sink, awkwardly, dangling it over the spray of the faucet with his knee poking the counter until it was clean. It was stinging again, and he relished the sharp pinpricks of pain like raw diamonds as he doused the blood-encrusted skin in alcohol. 

Cold as snow, clear as day, and then he was pure and dripping and achy, though in need of a dressing for his wounds. Bandaids were always too small; he'd strip several on the gashes, overlapping, and then it was fucking hell to peel them off days later—but that, too, was part of the process. Guilt was not a thing you could toss away in a moment of torture; it had to be dragged on. In the old days, they'd chain you to a wagon and run you through the mud for miles. In modern times, you'd give yourself a nice puckered scar and hope no one ever saw it.

There were clean clothes on the far end of the bathroom counter, and he was about to shrug them on when he noticed the wrinkled pants. Still folded, stained rusty in the middle where he'd knelt in Augustus Cole's life force as it seeped onto the dull concrete. Pulling them up over the bandages with a flash of a wince, he wondered idly if he'd be able to sleep tonight. Insomnia would be a fitting punishment—he'd wear the pants, then, to remind him.

Some more cleaning, careful and thorough, with wadded up toilet paper. He flushed them when he'd finished—only a punk-ass novice idiot left evidence of spilled blood, legal or not. Then he splashed water over his face, across the tiny wrinkles that appeared on his forehead when he frowned, and caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror. Those eyes were still bloodshot beneath the special-order emerald contacts, and now his lips were bruised violet; mottled purple, like thunderclouds. Well, fuck that. Mulder could imagine him sucking face with an invisible chick in the shower, for all he cared.

The door swung open with an irascible creak to reveal the solemn, sour-appled countenance of Mulder. True to form, he hadn't raided the fridge.

"What the fuck were you doing in there, Krycek?"

* * *

He offered a flat, none-of-your-business stare. Best to meet it head on. "Nothing you'd care about. Why'd you come here, anyway?"

Ire melted into something softer, cloying, and Krycek felt compelled to look away before bees started to extract honey from Mulder's eyes. "Look, it's the first time you've ever killed someone. It can be hard."

"Shit happens," he said, voice grating roughly. Never mind that the count was up to 397—his wall of tallies was getting crowded. What Mulder didn't know wouldn't hurt him, as the Consortium liked to say. 

Tossing his head, oddly appreciative of a persona that allowed him more than the usual buzz cut, he stalked into the living room. Being the ever persistent bastard that he was, Mulder followed suit. It was too bright in there as well. There was a sunbeam following him around, flaming into his eyes. He turned off all of the lamps until only a faint glow from the kitchen crept into the room, just enough so that he could see clearly.

"I merely thought that it might help to discuss it. You seemed upset at the time, and you know there's going to be an official inquiry."

Plush. The couch was plush, soft, and he sank into it. Hopefully Mulder had ignored the catch in his breath when the pants rode up against his freshly bandaged thigh. He rolled his eyes up at the ceiling—it was still easier than meeting Mulder's petulant gaze—and shot his voice out with the flatness of stale wine. "What are you going to tell them?"

"You know what I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them that you did the right thing." And he felt eyes on him, boring into his neck, challenging him to look down and meet them. If he was bold enough, they seemed to say. But he wasn't, so he just stared up at the fleeting play of shadows across crumbling plaster.

"Yeah."

An uncomfortable, dragging pause, and then, "Krycek, you can talk about it. Academy training doesn't prepare you for the real thing."

His short bark of laughter rang, echoed shrilly in the stifling air. Funny, it had been frosty just a few moments ago. "You tried to ditch me at the beginning of this case and after it's over you show up at my door and act like you're my best friend? If I want to talk about it, I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities with the Bureau psychologist that they assign me."

"I'm a psychologist." Sounding affronted, Mulder twisted on the couch; there was a faint, jarring creak of bones. If Krycek had glanced down he'd have seen Mulder sidle in, closer to him, but there was no need. He could almost feel the fervent heat that the man generated in his passion for the truth. Aside from that, the pitter-patter of breath on his cheek was tickling him.

Manufacturing tears was one of the more demanding aspects of his profession; there wasn't anything, really, that could call them up. Nothing that he was willing to remember, at any rate. To death he was indifferent, by necessity. When people fucked him over he got pissed off, and that was about it. In his effort to avoid tear ducts like they were a strain of the black cancer, he'd concocted just the right blend of suffering and masculinity to appease even the most critical judges of character. 

Mulder, he'd noticed, wasn't a very critical judge of character. The gullible little fucker hadn't even suspected his new partner when those 'secret' government files were pilfered right from under his feet.

Aloud he said, "I'm fine, Mulder. We'll go through the inquiry and I'll attend some mandatory counseling session and that will be that."

"Do you have anyone? Family, a girlfriend? The Bureau psychologists don't know shit, Alex."

Shocked, his head tilted down automatically to study the other's smoothly composed features. Yet there was something raw in them, something unfinished and open—and the words. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought Mulder was — no. The files had been specific about Mulder's sexuality; he'd never _come on_ to Alex Krycek. Alex Krycek was supposed to become a friend, a confidante; not a fuckbuddy. Especially not when Krycek, the idealistic young agent, was supposed to be in a distraught and vulnerable state.

"No," he said, and sought an elusive twist of truth in the other man's hooded gaze.

It was a long while before he found it; or, at least, a convoluted thread of it that he unraveled until he arrived at its origin. Then Mulder twitched, eyes wide and agitated, sliding away from him like a skittish deer. By the time it had registered in Krycek's mind, the other man was up and backing into the door.

"If I can't help you, I'll just—go—and see you tomorrow, at the inquisition," Mulder murmured, a far cry from the self-assured, arrogant bastard who had refused to so much as shake Alex Krycek's hand.

This was definitely not part of Krycek's master plan, nor had it figured into the Consortium's grand agenda. But he was used to split second changes of pace, and cancerstick's instructions _had_ been vague. 'Get into Mulder's good graces. Make him trust you.' Perhaps it could—yes, it would figure in, if done properly. If he was good enough, he might even be able to forge a bond with his fellow agent without having to reveal anything of himself.

He sprang up, tugging Mulder's hand into his own before the other man could jerk it away, and dragged them both into the gaping maw of the couch. "You _can_ help me, Mulder."

Eyebrows arched skyward, but then the eyes beneath them narrowed apprehensively. "What do you mean?"

"We can help each other." It came out as a hiss, laced thick with need, and he slid his free hand up to rest at Mulder's collarbone. And rest it did, still against the hollow of neck with a brush of baby's breath on the smooth skin, hinting at what could happen.

Confusion furrowed the other's brow even more, permitting his lapse into familiarity. "Alex, what are you—" The fingers slid into motion, trailed down the dark shirt to press just where a nipple would be. A low gasp escaped from Mulder's lips before he pulled away. "Krycek, what are you doing—I don't —"

Krycek injected a poorly masked note of anguish into his voice, an etching of pain onto his features to match the open longing. His eyes fell, and the hand dropped down to his side with one last, feathery brush against Mulder's clothed shoulder. "Sorry. You're probably tired."

A shift back into the upholstery. "Not really. I don't sleep much." When Krycek glanced up, he was pinned to the wall by a very speculative gaze. "I had no idea.."

"Well, I had no idea, either." Tentatively, his fingers snaked over to brush a jean-clad thigh. 

It was still a mystery to him, though. If you found out that someone was lying to you or purposely concealing something, wasn't it then logical to suspect them of fibbing when it came to other things? He'd always followed the Santa Claus philosophy; if Santa Claus isn't real, then what about the tooth fairy? Oh, yeah? Then what's up with the Easter bunny? So he's a fake too—well, then, there's no way in hell that God is out there..

Just as a guileless Mulder leaned in to plant his lips on a certain ratlike mouth, Krycek remembered that he hadn't brushed his teeth since the atonement. Hadn't gotten rid of the blood that surely lingered there, still, in tiny molecules. Not that he was able to taste it now, but he couldn't allow it to sully Mulder's clean tongue.

"Just a sec," he murmured, climbing to his feet and deftly concealing the wince that followed as the gashes stretched and tore. In less than a minute he'd gulped down the required mouthful of spring water and was yanking a bewildered Mulder up with him.

"Alex—?"

"Just stay." Eyes running over the firm runner's physique as if judging a painting, Krycek reached for the belt— tugged it off, quickly, before Mulder was able to voice his protests. He sifted through the silky shock of brown hair with one hand, gentle as a lamb, drawing Mulder's eyes in with his own solemn, heavy-lidded gaze. And he knelt. This time his expression remained blank, carefully white-washed, as the bandages were pulled taut.

"We shouldn't do this. You just—" Oddly shrill, the voice rose—then fell sharply, like a rock, at the sweep of a hand against a similarly rocklike area.

It occurred to Krycek, as he tugged on Mulder's jeans until they were puddled at his ankles, that men were all mindless pigs. All you had to do was _hint_ at fucking them and they were putty in your hands, literally. All doubts quelled. Even the cancerstick would capitulate if you put his flaccid little cock in your mouth. Krycek himself was guilty of doing this, several times, before the smoker had learned his lesson. The lesson: If you fuck, be prepared to get fucked over in turn. Yet knowing this seemed not to matter to a typical man.

Krycek was grateful for this flaw, for he was not your typical man—no one ever got to the stage where they could fuck him.

So Mulder was a boxers man—and he was uttering a low, throaty little moan as his erection was finally released from its confines. Of _course_ a man like Mulder would be well hung, enough to make even Krycek's inner slut twitch at the thought of latching onto it. But just as he was about to do so, Curious George interrupted.

"Are you sure you really—"

"Shhh." Shifting, he caught the length of it in his hand and then ran his fingers along the head, lightly tracing the dew-glistening wetness. A faint stroke here, a tight but ginger clasp of fingers there—the way you'd hold a gun— and Mulder's guttural sigh was coasting into the air as his hips arched forward. That was where Krycek focused, on a point just above the pale outline of hipbone that jutted out like a ghost skeleton. Looking further down gave him a jolt of pleasure that clashed with his agenda.

"Do you have any—" Mulder began in a breathless pant at the sight of Krycek's head moving insistently toward his groin. "I mean, this isn't safe—"

Krycek paused, tilting his head up with a deliberate jerk while his hand splayed lazily along Mulder's inner thigh. Eyebrows curled, he spoke with a wispy gust of breath on the other's exposed abdomen, inciting a sharp tremble. "So you've been sleeping around?"

A telltale flush around the cheekbones, little more than a shadowed gleam of rose in the darkness. He hadn't thought Mulder could blush. "No—I have the X-Files, and I'm not really—"

"And we're all tested regularly," said Krycek, who had perused Mulder's surveillance records with a discerning eye. He knew for a fact that the man hadn't been laid since his days at Oxford with that manipulative Phoebe bitch. "Just let me, please." With just the right inflection, mingled need and lust and the guilt of ages, Mulder might shut the hell up. He lived in hope.

"Okay, but I—" Finally, the apprehensive drone was drowned out by a husky, moaning chorus.

And maybe you didn't have to say anything at all to shut Mulder up, just take him into your mouth, drown the salty weep of his tears with a zigzag of tongue like lightning on water. He sat as an innocent bystander, still as a statue but for the rhythmic lapping, the damp musk of Mulder on his crushed lips. It was Alex Krycek who gave those heavenly blow jobs of legend, not _him_. He just watched from above, directing the play—visible only for the curtain call.

Watch he did, glazed eyes flowing over the rise and fall and wanton thrust of Mulder's hips. And when he came it was strangely without movement, still as glass. No way to even tell unless you were Krycek, with the warmth and steam of summer rain splashing into your mouth. 

And if you were Krycek you were too busy swallowing, licking the gold-dust trickle from your lips like it was cyanide, to notice. And you sure as hell didn't think about the aftertaste—which didn't have quite the bitter tang you'd imagined—that lingered in the back of your throat.

By the time an ominously silent Mulder had buttoned his jeans, fingers fumbling uselessly at the denim, Krycek was lounging on the couch. His lips worked every once in a while, keeping the sheen of saliva fresh, but no sound came out until Mulder had collapsed beside him in a pose of boneless lethargy. "Good?" Tired inquiry, automatic as breathing. He'd lost count of how many times he'd asked it.

"Fuck," Mulder said, and without warning slipped his arm around Krycek's shoulders. "What do you want me to do." Not really a question; more a statement of intent, and a hand had suddenly slipped in between his legs, elbow settling against his bruised thigh.

He tensed up, coiled like a spring, ready to unwind and flee at any moment. It was only with a conscious effort that he relaxed his muscles into loose amiability, letting the barbed flash of his eyes fall slack and vacant. It wasn't supposed to go like this, damn it. Mulder was supposed to lie there, sated, and fall asleep, or allow Krycek to usher him out the door and mumble a drowsy thanks. This wasn't a part of his plan.

Of course, Mulder had noticed the grimace, here and then gone in a firefly flicker. The arm retreated. "You got hurt today?"

And he adapted; he always did. Necessity was the mother of invention. Krycek was an invention. "Actually, no. The neighbor has a cat. I tried to pet it and.."

Faint, half-hearted chuckle, laziness spreading thick like honey on the other's tongue. "S'why I have fish."

"Listen—Mulder, I'm really tired."

The man beside him shot up into wakefulness. "Don't you want—"

Standing, he snapped his legs straight with a burst of glee as pain lanced through them. But it withered into ash at the sight of Mulder's stricken face; at the unbidden thought of that lush, eager mouth on his cock. His voice billowed out into the air, listless, betraying nothing.

"Tomorrow, please.. I just—want to sleep. It's been a long day."

Mulder was next to him now, shoulders even, brushing and then jerking away. Even with the upscale New York sweater on his arm, cell phone attached and hair slightly mussed, his mournful expression made him look like a Holocaust victim. "If you're sure?"

"Yeah." Never mind that he wasn't. Never mind that he mouthed "spasi menya" to the other's retreating back. It was just wistful sentiment.

"I'll see you in the morning, then. We'll have to talk about this. You won't mention it to anyone, right?" He should have known that Mulder would remain coherent in spite of it all. Damned eidetic memory, singular focus.

"I'm not that green," he snapped, but there wasn't any real bite to it. Sometimes, after a rat had finished trolling the garbage, it was as harmless as a mouse.

A few moments later Mulder had faded through the door in a dandelion rush, the spice of him steadily drifting away into the air. Maybe he was flourishing somewhere else; maybe he'd never really been there at all. It was all the same to Krycek once he'd locked the door and set up his monitoring equipment to study Mulder's apartment.

Then Alex Krycek tiptoed into his bathroom in silent, spidery steps, even though there was no one to hear him, and vomited the contents of his stomach into the toilet. It was very methodical, the spacing of his gags, the dry, wracked heaving of his body. Nor was he remiss in cleaning up; when he was done, there wasn't a trace of anything—anywhere. Even his teeth gleamed at him, the pearly white of angel's wings, from the too-bright mirror.

Not too long after that he was perched on the counter again with the soothing, icy chill of a blade in his hands, slashing in cryptic arcs along the inside of his other thigh. This time, the tip trailed much higher than before. And this time, when he was done, the butterflies in his stomach refused to let him tally the sin on his sheet.

Instead he drew up another chart, an atonement list for the grievous wrong of _wanting_ a man whom he had betrayed long before he'd even known Fox Mulder existed. In time, the list would grow long, the paper worn and battered. But he carried it with him like a child would cling to a teddy bear, scrawling dutifully. Even after the subject of the list had rendered him a cripple, the tallies shot up with the speed of sunflowers. Moonflowers, in his case.

You see, Alex Krycek was a very meticulous man.

* * *

_Bleed in your own light  
Dream of your own life   
I miss me   
I miss everything I'll never be   
And on, and on _

I torch my soul to show   
The world that I am pure   
Deep inside my heart   
No more lies 

So soon I'll find myself alone   
To relax and fade away   
Do you know what's coming down   
Do you know I couldn't stay free? 

"Rocket" (The Smashing Pumpkins)

_Note: "spasi menya" means "save me" in Russian, according to a dictionary and a couple of random, Russian-speaking people. If I'm wrong, please tell me so that I can put in the right translation._

[email removed] 

April 16, 2000  
Fandom: The X-Files  
Contact: [email removed]; any and all feedback adored. Flames welcomed for my own amusement.  
Spoilers: "Sleepless," vague conspiracy references, and a _teensy_ mention of events in "Terma"  
Rating: NC-17 for language and sex stuff.  
Pairing: Mulder/Krycek  
Summary: Krycek has a conscience, but it's just as dark and convoluted as the rest of him. How far will he go to satisfy it?  
Warnings: Blood, angst, m/m interaction.  
Disclaimer: These characters are owned and also cruelly mistreated by surfer dude CC and the evil FOX, not to be mistaken for Alex's darling Lisitsa.  
Notes: Set at the end of Sleepless.  
Beta: By the wonderful Dr. Ruthless and the lovely Niffusa. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.   
---


End file.
